In the end, the Legislature couldn't even end its own session on time. The Legislature's rules called for adjournment at midnight Sept. 15, but both the Senate and Assembly had to stop their clocks to work through the night on remaining legislation.

"I hope that we'll be out before dawn," a solemn Senate President pro tem Bill Lockyer, D-San Leandro, told his colleagues.

In the flurry of activity marking the final hours of the Legislature, there were some notable accomplishments, although any one of them could have been completed weeks ago. They included measures:

* Allowing insurance companies to offer scaled-down earthquake insurance policies. Insurance companies, which are required under law to offer earthquake coverage if they write homeowners policies, said the changes were necessary to keep them from going broke.

The scaled-down policies will offer structural coverage, but with limits on contents and no coverage for such things as swimming pools, decks or garages.

* Authorizing the state insurance commissioner to begin setting up a state earthquake insurance authority to offer policies to California homeowners.

* Placing the issue of protecting mountain lions before voters next year. The measure, if signed by Gov. Wilson, would ask voters whether the strict protections enjoyed by mountain lions should be lifted.

* Shifting $810 million in various special funds to Orange County's general fund over 20 years to help the bankrupt county pay its bills. Lawmakers also passed a measure that would give Los Angeles County a $150 million, one-time infusion of transportation funds to help county officials keep health clinics open.

* Requiring fluoridation of drinking water in all public water systems with more than 10,000 customers.

In all, however, most legislators agreed that 1995 was not a year of striking accomplishment, mostly because of turmoil in the Assembly. Even Lockyer, pointing to a list of accomplishments by the Senate in 1995, qualified it by saying, "It goes without saying that 1995 has been an extraordinarily difficult year."

He blamed the delay in ending the session on legislation

"tangled up" in the "complicated politics of the Assembly."

Thursday, Assembly Speaker Doris Allen resigned, saying her fellow Republicans had made her life a "Dante's inferno." A day before, she had complained about being pushed around by "a group of power-mongering men with short penises."

Allen was replaced with another Republican moderate, 33-year-old Brian Setencich of Fresno. He won with no Republican votes other than his own and Allen's, just as Allen had been elected with only her own vote and those of Assembly Democrats.

Setencich immediately pledged fairness, but Republicans were already computing when he could be replaced with a conservative choice of their own.

And even in the Senate, there were signs of turmoil. Longtime Republican leader Ken Maddy of Fresno was replaced three weeks ago by Christian conservative Rob Hurtt or Garden Grove, who has dedicated himself to electing more like-minded Republicans next year.

Republicans and Democrats found themselves at near-parity in the Assembly following last November's election. Coupled with the impact of term limits - the last of the veteran Assembly members are being forced to leave at the end of next year, creating power struggles throughout the Capitol - the two parties were at war in the Assembly throughout 1995.

"Usually, when the elections are over, we go out of our political mode and into our public policy mode," said Assemblywoman Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey. "That didn't happen this year. By nature, the political mode is a confrontational mode."

Bowen began the year by negotiating with Republicans toward a power-sharing arrangement. It never came to fruition.

"I am very, very disappointed," she said. "Michigan had an equally divided house and had one of the most productive sessions in years."

The year was punctuated by two recall elections - with one more still to come - and a series of special elections.

The bitterness stemmed from the battles over who would be speaker. When Republicans won 41 of the 80 Assembly seats last year, they came to Sacramento expecting to elect the first Republican speaker in 25 years.

But when one Republican, Paul Horcher, voted to keep Assemblyman Willie Brown, D-San Francisco, as speaker, Brown stayed on. When Horcher was recalled three months ago, Brown and Democrats rallied behind Allen, a moderate, who agreed to allow Democrats to share power on committees.

Republicans immediately launched a recall against Allen, which qualified for the ballot Thursday in her Orange County district. The election will be held Nov. 28.

While Setencich was elected with no support from the Republican hierarchy, he has won high marks for his skills in presiding over the house the past three months. His election did not draw nearly the amount of fire Allen attracted from Republicans.

But Setencich must gain support among his Republican colleagues if he is to remain in the post. If Brown were to be elected mayor of San Francisco, reducing the Democrats to 38 seats, and Allen were to be recalled, giving Republicans 40 votes for the leader of their choice, his tenure could end in November.&lt;